1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument with an automatic music performing system.
2. Prior Art
An electronic musical instrument with an automatic music performing system has heretofore been known which is arranged to perform an automatic accompaniment on the basis of a sustained tone of a depressed key and a so-called rhythmic chord in which the generation of the tone of the depressed key is controlled in accordance with a rhythm (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-197094). Although this prior-art instrument has two tone generating systems, it has a drawback that the generated sound is monotonous since both of the tone generating systems generate tones based on the same chord.
Another electronic musical instrument has been known in which, while a chord accompaniment is automatically being reproduced, generation of a tone corresponding to a depressed key is carried out (U.S. Pat. No. 4,339,978). This instrument is capable of performing a music in which the tone of a depressed key is superposed on the tone of an automatic accompaniment. However, since the tones generated are of the same tone color, it is impossible for this prior art instrument to independently carry out a musical performance based on depressed keys and an automatic accompaniment. Therefore, this instrument also has the drawback that the sound of the musical performed is monotonous.
In general, in order to impart variation to a music performed, it is required to generate a tone of a depressed key of an accompaniment keyboard independently of a tone of automatic accompaniment while the accompaniment tone is automatically being reproduced. However, the conventional electronic musical instruments cannot achieve such generation of the tones.
With the structure of another conventional electronic musical instrument, data representative of a music to be automatically performed are formed by recording in a memory the note name of each key which is operated (depressed and/or released) on the keyboard and the data representative of each timing of change of state of the operated key. In the automatic playing (reproducing) mode, the musical performance data thus formed are sequentially read from the memory and a musical tone is produced in accordance with these read data. One example of such electronic musical instrument is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-205192. There has also been proposed a so-called chord sequencer in which the chords of an accompaniment are recorded by storing the kind and the note-length (beat length) of each chord using the keyboard and predetermined switch elements.
Such conventional electronic musical instrument is, however, disadvantageous in that since the note name of each operated key and the depressing or releasing timing of the key are stored during performing a music, the capacity of the memory for storing such musical performance data must be significantly large.
The above conventional chord sequencer can not record the accompaniment in real time, so that it is quite difficult to form and record data exactly representing an accompaniment which the performer wishes to let the instrument automatically play.
There has also been proposed a further electronic musical instrument with an automatic music performing system in which not only musical performance data for automatically reproducing the tones of a music but also other musical performance data for automatically changing a tone color, a musical effect are provided. In such electronic musical instrument, the musical performance data for automatically reproducing the tones are formed by storing the note name and the note length of each operated key, while the musical performance data for automatically changing the tone color, the musical effect and so on are formed by storing the state of control elements, such as a tone-color selection switch, a tone volume and so on, provided on the control panel. One example of such conventional electronic musical instrument is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-131987.
It is sometimes desirable for such an electronic musical instrument to automatically perform the recorded music in a tone color different from that selected then the music was recorded.
It is also desired for the electronic musical instrument to automatically change the tone color, the musical effect and so on during the time when a music is manually performed on the keyboard of the instrument.